As Buddha said, life is suffering. This does not mean that suffering cannot be avoided or overcome, but rather that to suffer is our default experience of life. It comes very naturally for us. We must work to overcome it, and this is one of the opportunities our practice of martial arts and meditation gives us.

In order to overcome it, we must first understand the nature of suffering. Essentially, suffering comes from desires that are unmet. We desire what we don’t have, so we suffer. We get what we desire, but then we replace that with another desire. As long as we have unfulfilled desires, we suffer.

Pain vs Suffering

One important distinction is between pain and suffering. Pain is unavoidable in life. As long as we live in a body, we will experience physical pain. To suffer, however, is optional. For example when we work hard in a martial arts class, our body is in pain from the necessary process of breaking down and building up muscle, of reaching our limits and breaking through them. We can be certain that everyone in class is in pain. Suffering comes in when the ego gets involved. The ego has desire for the pain to stop, anxiety for the possibility of continued pain. Another way of looking at it is that the body experiences pain, while the ego suffers.

As long as we identify as the ego, it is quite difficult to overcome suffering. Enlightenment is the shedding of the ego mind and therefore the letting go of desires and suffering. Until we are enlightened, we can do the work to let go of suffering moment by moment. So when we recognize we are caught up in the cycle of desire, we can break free of it. 

Anticipation

We often compound the effect of suffering by anticipating more of it. If you’re at the office at 5 PM on a Friday and your boss slams a pile of paperwork on your desk, your immediate response is to think about how you are about to suffer through all that work (unless you love doing paperwork). Yet if you know that tomorrow is the weekend and you’re going on vacation to your favorite beach, you can quite easily let go of suffering in anticipation of that relaxation. Fast forward to Sunday: you’re sitting on that beautiful beach, the sun is up, and you couldn’t feel better…except you’re thinking about the fact that tomorrow you’ll be back in the office. Even though your present circumstances are wonderful, you suffer from anticipation of suffering.

Living in the present is the key: in the present, there is no wondering how long pain will last, no anticipation. As Michel de Montaigne says, “A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.” When we meditate, we practice letting go of thoughts and fears. 

All about us

Another reason we suffer needlessly is by taking things personally. As Don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements, “Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”

When we make everything about us, when we see all of life and creation through the ego lens and are only interested in how we are impacted, of course it’s impossible not to take things personally. Every look someone gives, every word they say, has to be about us. The key here is to gain a bigger perspective. When we connect to something bigger than ourselves, our consciousness and identity expands. Then we can understand how someone else’s actions may have nothing to do with us as an individual. Family, community and being of service for something bigger and more important than ourselves is where we gain this expansive perspective. It’s very helpful to remember that it’s just not about you.

How Suffering Helps Us

Finally, it may be helpful to have an idea of how suffering helps us. Friedrich Nietzsche, an expert on suffering, said that “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” I’d like to change that slightly and say that to thrive is to find meaning in our suffering. If we at times cannot break free of the cycle of desire, we can at least find happiness knowing that to suffer can help us in the future.

Khalil Gibran says, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” To suffer has a purpose, to make us stronger and more compassionate for ourselves and others. Suffering today can help us to ease tomorrow. It hardens and hones us like the blade of a sword, repeatedly hammered out and folded over in the heat. Eventually the hammering stops, the blade is complete. If we suffer greatly, we can at least remember that this too shall pass. All is impermanent, even suffering.